^'''i' 2'!^^'] I'.DWAkDSj Tlie Lyyc-Dird ^Mcnitya siiperha). 3^ 



Discovery and Early History and Notes on the 



Lyre-Bird (Menura superba). 



By H. V. 1':dwakds, R.A.O.U., Beca, N.S.W. 



According to Collins (" Account of the English Colony of New 

 South Wales"), the Lyre-Bird {Menura superba) was accidentally 

 discovered in January, 1798, by "a party of Irishmen" allowed 

 1)3' (lovernor King to go out in search of land suited for a sepaiate 

 settlement for themselves. These amateur explorers, who were 

 unsuccessful in their quest, penetrated to the Blue Mountains, 

 where they obtained and brought back to the settlement on Poit 

 Jackson specimens of a " new variety of the Biid-of-Paradise," 

 M'hich was subsequently named the " Lyre-tail " — Menura superba. 

 Collins gives an accurate figure of this avian treasure trove from 

 the " pencil of a capital artist." Then apparently arose the 

 difficultv of classification. Temminck began by placing the bird 

 among ^he Tluushes, between the forms Cinclus and Pit[a---dn 

 arrangement followed pretty closely by Cuvier. Vieillot, however, 

 differed, placing the Lyre-tail near the group Columba ; while 

 llliger, in his " Prodromus," placed it among the Rasores, as also 

 did Vigors, who included the bird in his family of Coracidce. The 

 new bird was also referred to occasionally as " Lyre-Pheasant," 

 or " Pheasant of the Woods," and classed with the Hornbills. 

 Swainson, however, in his " Classification of Birds," made the 

 Menura the first genus of his group Megapodiina., or " Great-foots." 

 As regards the habits of the Lyre-Bird, early observers arrived 

 at some strange conclusions. Collins says : — " They (the Lyre- 

 Birds) sing for two hours in the morning, beginning from the time 

 when they quit the valley for the hills " ; while Chief Justice Field, 

 of Gibraltar, who was long resident in Ntw Holland, asserted that 

 the Menura was in " all its habits a Gallinaceous bird, living on 

 the ground in small societies, and being very fond of rolling in the 

 dust." At a much later time, Bennett, in his " Wanderings in 

 New South Wales," &c., 1832 34, records that tails from the 

 male Lyre-Birds were sold in Sydney as cin'ios — first at low prices, 

 and then, as the birds grew scarce through constant destruction, 

 at from 20s. to 5()s. the pair. He then makes a most remarkable 

 statement. " The nest of the Lyre-Bird," he says, " is formed 

 merely of dried grass or dried leaves scraped together ; the 

 female lays from tweh'e to sixteen eggs, of a white colour, with a 

 few scattered bhic spots." The single egg of the Lyre-Bird is, 

 of course, blotched with chocolate-brown on a ground of bluish- 

 grey, while the huge nest is cleverly constructed from sticks, 

 twigs, mosses, bark, &c., and shaped like that of a Blue Wren or 

 Superb Warbler. From an accidental resemblance, too, between 

 the European Wren and its nest and the Lyre-Bird and nest, the 

 latter has been classed by some superficial writers as a " Giant 

 Wren." The breeding-time of the Lyre-Bird, according to 

 Bennett, is December, " when all the wild animals in the colon \- 

 (New South Wales) are produced." 



